Pearl Jam - Ten

Artist - Pearl Jam
Album - Ten
Released - August 27, 1991
Reviewed By - The Starchild

Accused of jumping on the bandwagon and attempting to cash on alt-rock mania in post-Nirvana environment, (Since their albums sales skyrocket upon Nevermind's release.) few know, that it was Pearl Jam's two key members (Stone Gossard and Jeff Ament) who were one of the creators of the sound that became known as Grunge and by the 90's rolled in, made Seattle rock capital for a brief period. Whilst Nirvana's music owed it's debt to punk and Soundgarden and Alice In Chains borrowed from heavy metal, (Gossard/Ament's previous bands had experimented with both of these things.) Vedder & Co. came out of school of Hendrix minus the blue influence, giving them a completely unique identity of their own.

Most of the material on this album deals with depression, loneliness, Jeremy the hit single telling story of a high school student who shot himself in front of his classmates, Alive being inspired from incident of Vedder discovering that his father was not the biological father who had already died. While Even Flow deals with homelessness and Garden takes one for a walk through the graveyard. Pearl Jam isn't about a band who is way too pissed off at the world, instead of that they take a look at larger picture and pay attention to other issues like highschool killings, homeless people etc. (as pointed out above)

Whether you will call Ten/Pearl Jam "A jump on bandwagon" or not, Ten proved to be extremely influential on musical industry as many singers (unsuccessfully, Scott Stapp anyone?) attemped to copy Vedder's signature soaring vocals while most of the post-grunge bands looked at Ten as blueprint, especially classic rock influenced twin-guitar attack of McCreedy/Gossard whose traces can be found in music of several bands which followed them and attempted to re-generate to magic this release did. It can be said that the beauty of this release lies in the fact that Pearl Jam aren't pretentious, they make music about troubles of a normal human being instead of self-indulgence, thus, giving everyone something to relate with it and therein lies one of the reasons of appeal of this record.

Another advantage Pearl Jam had was their members had worked with each other for a while in one or other form and thus, had beneifit of having chemistry and it's highly evident on this record. Solidly crafted guitarwork, perfect songwriting, impressive vocals, . and a not-so-famous Dave Krusen providing solid backup with the help of ever reliable Jeff Ament. the band is like a well-oiled machine working here. Thus, the result one can see is a perfect album featuring no weaknesses, truly a classic which has stood the test of time, and one of the finest albums of 1990's. I can't imagine how one must have felt upon hearing Jeremy on radio on a sunny afternoon while world was waiting for another explosion known as Nirvana.

Rating - 5/5

Tracklisting -

1. Once (Eddie Vedder, Stone Gossard) – 3:51
2. Even Flow (Vedder, Gossard) – 4:53
3. Alive (Vedder, Gossard) – 5:40
4. Why Go (Vedder, Jeff Ament) – 3:19
5. Black (Vedder, Gossard) – 5:43
6. Jeremy (Vedder, Ament) – 5:18
7. Oceans (Vedder, Gossard, Ament) – 2:41
8. Porch (Vedder) – 3:30

9. Garden (Vedder, Gossard, Ament) – 4:58
10. Deep (Vedder, Gossard, Ament) – 4:18
11. Release (Vedder, Gossard, Ament, Mike McCready, Dave Krusen) – 9:04